Dramatic Techniques in Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell :: Shirley Valentine Willy Russell Essays

Dramatic Techniques in Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell How do the dramatic techniques use in the play help the audience to understand the importance of Shirley’s transformation? You should refer to the significance of the play’s social and historical (settings, attitudes to women SHIRLEY VALENTINE Task: How do the dramatic techniques use in the play help the audience to understand the importance of Shirley’s transformation? You should refer to the significance of the play’s social and historical (settings, attitudes to women, attitudes to marriage, expectations of life, etc) context and the literary context (kitchen-sink drama, comedy, tragedy, drama, etc). The play ‘Shirley Valentine’ was written by Willy Russell. Russell was born in 1976, near Liverpool. He left school when he was fifteen and did a variety of jobs before becoming a writer. Originally he used to be a songwriter, performing in his late teens. By the time he was twenty he decided to become a playwright rather than his desired option of teaching. In his first eighteen months schools loved his work and he decided that he was successful enough to do it fulltime. â€Å"Shirley Valentine†, is the story of a middle age woman living in Liverpool and her change in life. Russell explores the usage of different dramatic techniques to tell a complex story. We the audience are in contact with Shirley from the beginning, because she talks to the camera. This forms a friendship between Shirley and the audience. We become her confidante. Other dramatic techniques used by the playwright are the use of Flashbacks and Voiceovers. In flashbacks Shirley would be doing something and would drift off talking about something that had happened earlier on in the day or a previous day, so we would get all the background information, on what has been going on. It also highlights the important events in her life to show us how she got to this point in her life. In Voiceovers Shirley would express her true feelings about someone whilst they would be talking about the thing that Shirley is expressing her feelings about. The opening credits depict a series of fifteen sketches that show Shirley doing her everyday routine of domestic chores, with no enthusiasm. Shirley if cleaning and cooking, this tells us what her life is like, boring. You could see that she is tired of living out her life in an ordinary marriage, with very little going on, she has all this Unfulfilled Potential which she desperately wants to overturn. The words of the soundtrack are very cleverly adapted to the sketches shown. They tell the everyday life story of a woman that has